Rep. Raúl Labrador says that Tuesday’s clean debt ceiling hike vote in the House is not a victory for House Speaker John Boehner and that conservatives in the lower chamber are still strong.

In a new online interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the Idaho Republican countered the narrative that Boehner getting a no-strings-attached debt ceiling solution passed with mostly Democrats showed his strength against the tea party.

“The fact that Congress just passed a ‘clean’ debt ceiling is neither a victory for Boehner nor the Republican Party; it’s actually a symptom of Congress’s refusal to make tough decisions,” Labrador told host David Gregory in the interview, published Thursday. “There was no sense in fighting on the debt ceiling when a number of Republicans were unwilling to stand together and fight. So some of us believed it was better to move past this fight and regroup.”

Labrador said conservatives in the House are actually growing in strength.

“Conservatives and many moderates feel that we need a bolder agenda,” Labrador said. “The number of vocal conservatives is actually growing in the House. To paraphrase Mark Twain, ‘Reports of the death of House conservatives have been greatly exaggerated.’”

What is dead, however, is immigration reform, he said.

“The president and Democratic leaders interfered with a good-faith bipartisan effort to reach an agreement in the House on immigration reform,” Labrador said. “In addition, the president continues to assert, whether through words or actions, that he does not need Congress to act. Because of this, the vast majority of House Republicans do not trust that the president will enforce the parts of any immigration reform that he does not like, as he has already done with his own signature health care legislation.”

Labrador, who has been highly critical of the speaker on immigration reform, said there is a chance something will get done next year.

“The president can buy a lot of goodwill this year by working with Congress to enforce the laws already in the books and — if he does that — we can tackle immigration reform in early 2015, when we’ll be in a better position to negotiate and get real results for the American people,” he said.